Article March 30, 1935 Issue

Bible Notes

"The Word was God" (John 1:1)—The rendering of the Authorized Version appears to imply that the Logos or Word was identical with God; but, if this had been the meaning intended by the writer, it is probable that, according to Greek idiom, he would have written the equivalent of "the Word was the-God." As the Greek stands, the more natural translation is surely that given by Moffatt: "The Logos was divine;" or Goodspeed, "The Word was divine," particularly in view of the fact that the Logos is spoken of as being "with God."

"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3)—The Greek preposition "dia," rendered "by," can also mean "through"; and the word translated "without" is more exactly "apart from" (cf. Souter: Greek Lexicon, p. 286). Hence Goodspeed has: "Everything came into existence through him and apart from him nothing came to be;" and Moffatt: "Through him all existence came into being, no existence came into being apart from him;" while Weymouth (5th edition) suggests: "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing that now exists came into being."

"All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it" (Eccl. 1:8)—The word translated "things" is "debarim," a term used in a wide variety of senses in Hebrew. In the singular, its primary meaning is "speech, or word," while it often denotes "story, matter, affair, business, case or cause" (Brown, Driver, and Briggs: Hebrew Lexicon, pp. 182-184). Then the term translated "full of labour" means more exactly "weary" (Barton: Commentary on Ecclesiastes, p. 74; Brown, etc., op. cit., p. 388). Smith suggests the rendering: "All cases would weary, we may not tell them;" while Moffatt has: "All things are aweary, weary beyond words."

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